


It Was Always You (I Always Knew)

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, crying and kissing, that's all this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons is a scientist. An especially good one, too. And because of that, she prides herself on research, practicality, and logic. She thinks things through. She looks into things, makes sure she understands them wholly before trying anything. She uses her knowledge of the world to always take the logical next step. </p><p>Except for Leopold Fitz. </p><p>Or, a story about how Jemma Simmons has chosen Leopold Fitz every single day for a decade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Was Always You (I Always Knew)

Jemma Simmons is a scientist. An especially good one, too. And because of that, she prides herself on research, practicality, and logic. She thinks things through. She looks into things, makes sure she understands them wholly before trying anything. She uses her knowledge of the world to always take the logical next step. 

Except for Leopold Fitz. 

When Simmons met Fitz, they were terrified teenagers at the Academy, full of people much older and more experienced than they were. Even though they’d been more places, done more things, Simmons couldn’t help but find them all painfully boring. And then Fitz waltzed into her life. Well, waltzed was a strong word. More like stumbled, just before the tardy cut off, on the first day of Advanced Practical Physics. At first she scoffed at his apparent disorganization. Then he opened his mouth and a number of things happened all at once.

The first was she realized he was Scottish. The thick brogue was the closest thing to home she’d heard in months. The second was that, despite his lateness, he was brilliant. Maybe even as brilliant as her. And he was young. Young like she was young. Someone else at the Academy who would feel out of place because of their age. It took all of five minute for Simmons to decide she was going to do whatever it took to befriend him. 

“Hello! I’m Jemma Simmons, but please, just call me Simmons.” As soon as class was dismissed, Simmons had cut Fitz off on the way out of the room. He stared at her, wide eyed, and grunted. 

“Fitz. And I uh, don’t want to be late again, so.” he nodded stiffly, shook her hand for a split second, and all but ran out the door. The logical conclusion from this interaction was that the young man was standoffish and shy at best, and an arse at worst, and clearly didn’t want anything to do with her. But every ounce of practicality in Simmons’ body was accompanied by an equal or greater amount of stubbornness, and Fitz, whoever he was, was going to like her. 

It took months, but it happened. The next project in physics was a partner assignment, and Simmons was sure she had just enough pull with the professor to arrange her own partner. And she was right. So when assignments were handed out, the teacher called their names. 

“Fitz, Simmons. You’ll be partnering up.” 

The sound of their names side by side just sounds right, and Simmons grins as she strides confidently to Fitz’s table. And even as Fitz looked hesitant and vaguely terrified, this was going to be something. She could feel it. 

And she still felt it a decade later, standing in the Playground lab across the way from Fitz, everything around them suspended as they got into yet another yelling match. Her hands shook and her throat hurt and she didn’t understand why he just couldn’t seem to grasp the idea that she’d always picked him. 

“I don’t understand what you want, Jemma!” his voice broke, and he ran his hands through his curls. Simmons could feel her nails bite into her palms as she pressed her fists tight, her shoulders tense and sore. 

“For the love of god, Fitz. You! How have you not figured that out yet! Yes, I’m incredibly upset about what happened to Will, but whether he’s alive or dead has no bearing on my decisions! It never did!”

“What?”

“Leo Fitz, I have been choosing you over any bloody thing else for over a decade! Frankly, the idea that you think I’d meet some strange astronaut and give up on you offends me! I fell in love with Will, yes. Because I thought I was going to die on that planet, Fitz! I thought I was never going to come home, and I had to let you go, because thinking about you and talking to you and remembering you while believing I was never going to see you again was killing me! 

When I saw that flare, I ran, Fitz! I left Will behind and I ran to get to you! Do you think for a moment if it had been you with me on that hell planet, I would have left you behind? We’re different, Fitz. We’ve always been, this has always been… different.”

“Oh.” is all Fitz seems to be able to say, and all the tension falls from the room in a moment. 

Simmons wishes, ardently, in that moment that Fitz really could read her mind. She didn’t have anymore words, she just wanted to send everything directly into his head. Every moment she’d always chosen him. The Academy. Everything she’d done for him when he was in Ossetia. How she’d hoped and prayed he would follow her into that storage closet after Skye was shot, and he did, he always did. How at the Hub she’d heard shots, and she’d thought he was dead, and then he came running through the door and she couldn’t have cared less about everyone else in that room as she ran for him and he caught her. How it felt like her very essence split apart when he pressed that button on the bottom of the ocean. How all the time she’d spent away from him since had felt more and more like dying. And just like that, she’s falling to the floor and she’s sobbing, because she is so very tired of missing him. Tired of missing him when she’s gone, when he’s gone. Tired of missing him when he’s mere inches away from her. 

However, Simmons never hits the ground, Fitz landing beneath her with a thump, cradling her head. He had always been so good at catching her when she fell. She collapses against his chest, turning in his lap and wrapping her arms around his waist. One of his hands is stroking her hair and the other is smoothing circles into her skin and every atom in her body is crying out home. 

“I miss you, Fitz. I miss you and I’m so so tired of missing you. I can’t do it anymore.”

“I know. I miss y’too Jemma. I’m sorry. I’ve been a right mess, and probably a right arse, ever since this…. Probably ever since before all this started, honestly.” 

“A mess, yes. We both have been. But not an arse, not even close. That’s why it’s been so hard, Fitz, you’ve been nothing but wonderful and careful and understanding this entire time and I… I don’t deserve it.” 

“Jemma.” Fitz’s voice was suddenly low and fierce as he shifted her slightly so he could face her. “You have done nothing, I mean that, nothing, wrong in this situation. There’s… There’s not real right or wrong thing to do. Not anymore. There hasn’t been for months. But the cosmos has put you through the bloody ringer, and I can’t do that, but I can… do my best to give you everything else.”

“But I…” her voice is quiet and shaking as she clings to him, and can’t meet his eyes. “Fitz, I gave up on you. I lost hope. I gave up and you… you never did.”

“I was here, Jemma. I had the team. No one could blame you for giving up on just about anything, with what happened to you. All that matters is that it came back. You came back.”

“Of course I did, Fitz.” she looks up at him again finally, planting her hands firmly on either side of his face “I will always come back, to you, for you, whichever. As soon as, or as long as, I know that you’re somewhere, I will find you.”

“D’you ever feel like, at some point, our brains might’ve just tossed out the instructions on how we existed before we met?”

“Yes.” she managed a watery chuckle “Quite frequently.”

“Jem…” Fitz said quietly, looking at her as she still sat, curled against, with her hands gripping his face. “You really want to… to make a go of this? Because if you’re in. I’m in. Always have been.”

“What about the cosmos?” Simmons teased, her playful voice music to Fitz’s ears.

“Screw the bloody cosmos. I love you.” 

“I love you too.” She smiles softly, and he’s looking at her like the stars were born from her eyes, and then she can't’ see anything because her eyes are closed and he’s kissing her. And it’s nothing like their angry, fevered kiss in the lab. It is soft and careful and the slow burn smolder of a late night campfire. His lips taste like the past ten years, and the next sixty, and just a little bit like tea. They pull back finally, and he presses soft kisses to the tear tracks on her cheeks, and she swears she can hear him murmuring “I love you” each time, and her heart feels like it might burst. So she drops a path of kisses from one side of his face to the next, a quiet “I love you” between each one, each kiss a promise that nothing will ever, ever tear them apart.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a self indulgent little thing about Jemma having feelings and these two horrible lovely children having a conversation finally. Title is from Always Knew by the Vaccines, which is a great song. Hope this was enjoyable!


End file.
